


Don't Want A Lot For Christmas

by Nny



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Christmas, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, M/M, Mistletoe, Sharing Clothes, unrepentant sap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-18 16:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21930517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/pseuds/Nny
Summary: “I figured you should have nice things for Christmas,” Bucky said, and Clint had to look away from the expression on his face when he spoke again. “It’s the time everyone’s supposed to get what they want, right?”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 48
Kudos: 257
Collections: Winterhawk Wonderland





	Don't Want A Lot For Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cheermione](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheermione/gifts).



> I was given the lovely prompts of:  
> 1) Mistletoe  
> 2) Cozy pyjamas  
> 3) Longsuffering Bucky wearing Christmas attire. 
> 
> I decided to combine all three for you, Cheermione. I hope you enjoy!

New York suited Christmas. 

Christmas sure didn't suit the New Yorkers, not when snow turned gray after two minutes on the ground, not when the season of peace and goodwill to all men lasted precisely until the asshole next to you reached for the same thing in the grocery store. It suited New York, though, like the whole city was a Christmas card, soft focus and gently golden lights. 

Bucky's feelings about Christmas were more complicated than that; his feelings about New York were doubly so. His feelings about this street, though, cracked sidewalk and flickering streetlights, were unambiguous enough that he had to avoid looking at them directly, for fear of what he'd have to admit. 

Every single one of the windows up the length of the fire escape had been decorated with red and glowing green and glimmering gold, with the occasional ice-blue for contrast. He craned his neck back, winced, and focused his eyes on the entirely unfestive purple lights, flexing his hands to warm them up enough to grip onto the stair rails before he started to climb. 

It wasn't so many flights as all that, but it felt like he was dragging the weight of all the sleepless nights up behind him, right along with the groceries he'd bought, and by the time he picked the lock and eased open the window it was all he could do to sling his leg over the sill.

Bucky slid the window closed behind him, shutting out the frigid New York night, and felt the tension slide off his shoulders like the jacket he'd left out on the fire escape. Odds were good it was gonna snow; odds were good that the jacket wasn't gonna be there in the morning, but it had smelled like gunsmoke and the kevlar rested heavy on every single one of his bruises. Besides, if it came to keeping him in the good fight, he was pretty sure Steve would be able to get him another one. Bucky let out a long breath, leaning his weight back against the window sill, and reached up to pull the band out of his hair, another little tension easing free as his hair fell forward around his face. 

Just to his left there was a pile of partial comics on the table, and a pair of scissors and some tape that let him know what their purpose had been. Bucky grabbed a couple of pages and laid them on the floor by the window, slowly fumbling the buckles on his boots undone with cold fingers that protested every move. There was a soft bark from somewhere above, and then the rushing clatter of an eager dog thumping down the stairs, and Bucky raised one hand to fend him off as he struggled with buckles with the other. Lucky wasn't so easily thwarted, though, and muscled through what was left of Bucky's defenses to rear up, rest his paws on Bucky's thighs and pant happily into his face. 

"What the hell has Clint been feeding you," he said, pushing at Lucky's muzzle and ducking his head away from cheesy breath, like that was any kind of question at all. 

As soon as he'd dumped his boots on the paper Bucky padded on slightly damp socked feet across the room to the small Christmas tree that was leaning against the staircase like a belligerent drunk at a bar. It was clear from the state of the lowest decorations that Lucky was enjoying the hell out of the addition, a circle of shed needles extending a foot in every direction. It was too early in December for any tree, even one that belonged to Clint Barton, to be looking that sad, so Bucky wove his arm between branches to grab the trunk. He carefully hefted it up, hooking his foot around the base of a step ladder Clint'd clearly used to hang some bedraggled paper chains, and dragging it closer so he could place the tree precisely on the top. Lucky stared up at it, betrayed, and Bucky dropped a hand to rest on his head, ruffling his ears until the dog was staring up at him adoringly, licking at his fingers. 

"You're the one I'm here for, buddy," he said quietly, feeling the tiredness lift just enough to let the corners of his mouth curve up. "Who needs that asshole upstairs, huh?" 

Lucky huffed a breath out through his nose, a quick chuff that made it sound like he put just about as much stock in Bucky's words as he did himself. It was an important fiction to maintain, though, a lie that he needed to keep reminding himself of - especially here in the dark and the warmth of Clint's apartment. Especially freshly returned from a mission, and feeling a little too much like he'd found his way home. 

Bucky surprised himself with a yawn, a barely-healed cut at the corner of his mouth pulling uncomfortably. He knew if he sat down now he'd never make it back upright again, but the couch was looming large in the corner of his eye, looking more tempting by the second. He bent his thoughts firmly in the direction of the hopeless state he was pretty sure Clint's fridge would be in - leftover pizza, if it'd even made it that far, and maybe a half-finished beer - and grabbed the bag of groceries he'd dumped by the window, toppling it onto the kitchen counter and grabbing the pack of Oreos before it rolled off onto the floor. 

Groceries, shower, bed, he told himself, sorting the food out into cupboards and working to keep his eyes open. Groceries, shower, bed. He'd slept on Clint's couch often enough that he knew where the sheets were now, often enough that Clint tended to call them Bucky’s sheets, which was another thing that Bucky was working hard not to think about. Clint would do as much for any of his friends, and that was the important part - it wasn't taking advantage if Clint wasn't treating him special, and the fact that it wasn't anything special sure as hell wasn't allowed to sting. 

He packed away the groceries, took the house keys out of the fridge where Clint’d absently stored them and hung them on the hook by the door. Everything that wasn’t supposed to be in a kitchen cupboard - toilet paper, shampoo, arrows, sleep mask, taser, santa hat - got tossed onto the kitchen counter to be sorted in the morning, replaced with the kind of groceries everyone should have at Christmas. 

When he was finally done he grabbed the towel that was draped over the back of a barstool and dragged himself over to the bathroom, grateful that Lucky’d apparently wandered back upstairs and wasn’t around to trip over. 

He wasn’t graceful when he was this goddamn worn out, worn through, worn down to his bones, and he didn’t want to crash around and wake Clint. 

*

Clint woke up with a nose in his crotch, which happened way too often for a guy who’d been single longer than he wanted to count. 

(Counting might involve working out whose arrival had prompted the dry spell, facing up to who he dreamed about at night, and Clint wasn’t into that level of miserable introspection. Not at _Christmas_.)

He shoved Lucky away but the dog wasn’t discouraged, bouncing back at him from different angles, showing a level of excitement that was pretty unacceptable at - he snagged his phone from the side table, squinting around the cracks - shit, at three thirty in the damned morning. 

“I remembered to feed you, right?” He grumbled, giving up and shoving his blankets aside. His sweatpants were fleece-lined and he’d worn a hoodie to bed, so it wasn’t until his bare feet touched the hardwood floor that he registered how goddamn cold it was, flinching back onto the mattress and fishing off the side of the bed for the garish holly-printed socks he’d found in a bargain bin at the bodega. 

He shuffled over to the staircase - even through the socks, the metal was frigid - and it wasn’t until he was halfway down that he registered the noise of rushing water. He was still blinking, rubbing his eyes and trying to wake himself up enough to make sense of it, when the bathroom door opened and Bucky Barnes - clad only in a Christmas-red towel that was barely clinging to his hips - emerged in a cloud of steam. 

Clint just about swallowed his tongue. 

“Morning,” he managed, after a moment of staring, and Bucky turned to look up at him, the corner of his mouth hitching up into a gentle sort of grin. The light from the open bathroom door gilded him, the fall of light and shade making him into something unfamiliar but beautiful. 

“You look like a kid that’s seen Santa,” Bucky said, and adopted an exaggerated surprised expression. 

“Santa never looked that good,” Clint said, absently, and he was grateful that the lack of light meant Bucky couldn’t see him blush. He rubbed the back of his neck and continued down the stairs, heading for the kitchen in the vague hopes that he’d have coffee hiding in some unregarded corner, something better than instant. 

As he passed the couch he fished under the blanket for the folded clothes underneath it, ‘cos he was always prepared (maybe hoping) that Bucky’d find his way here. He tossed them over, a pair of dark blue flannel snowflake-covered pants and a faded red shirt that was about the softest thing he owned. 

It was a moment that called for some kinda funny one-liner, something to break the tension when Bucky met his eyes, but Clint couldn’t think of anything to say. He ducked his head and continued around the kitchen counter, taken aback for a second at the weird array of items that were tossed there. He switched on the flickering neon light under the cabinet and picked up a santa hat he hadn’t even known he had, straightening out the plastic mistletoe leaves that were attached to the brim. 

The pattern of light in the room shifted as Bucky disappeared into the bathroom again, closing the door behind him. Clint took a second to lean his weight against the counter, take some deep breaths, because they were _friends_ and it would’ve been _deeply inappropriate_ to drop to his knees and tug the towel off with his teeth, even if that was the only thing he could think about right now. Clint banged his head against the cabinet a couple times and then opened it without much hope. 

He closed it. 

Opened it again. 

The ground coffee was at the front, and sure there were other things in the cupboard - fancy things, things he never got around to buying for himself - but the coffee was what grabbed his attention. It was the fancy stuff, the _really good shit_ , the stuff they kept behind the counter at the bodega because it was more expensive than any of their booze. It wasn’t fancy like Tony’s cat shit coffee, but it was as fancy as you were ever gonna get in a Bed-Stuy bodega at this time of night, and the thought that Bucky’d bought it for him nestled into Clint’s chest, right next to his heart. 

“It works better if you don’t just stare at it,” Bucky said, low and amused and right in his ear, and Clint spun around rather than go with his first instinct and just melt back against him, like he’d be welcome there, like he’d instantly and precisely fit. 

Bucky Barnes in soft and slightly oversized clothing was an assault on the senses - being unable to touch him when he looked like that was definitely one of the circles of hell. Clint reached out, just about managing to translate the movement into something a little more innocent, shoving the santa hat over Bucky’s damp hair. 

“You didn’t have to buy me all this,” he said, tugging on the pompom lightly. 

“I figured you should have nice things for Christmas,” Bucky said, and Clint had to look away from the expression on his face when he spoke again. “It’s the time everyone’s supposed to get what they want, right?”

“I’ve got everything I want right here,” Clint said softly, not doing a great job of hiding how much he meant those words. He looked back and almost startled back at how close Bucky was, his eyes wide and his lips a little parted, looking like he’d been struck by a bolt out of the blue. 

Clint sucked in a breath, and Bucky swayed slightly forward with it, his eyes dropping to Clint’s mouth like they were magnetised. It felt impossible, too good to be true, some kind of Christmas miracle; Bucky Barnes, wearing a threadbare santa hat with mistletoe on the brim, looking at Clint like there was nothing else he’d rather do than kiss him. 

Impossible, maybe, but Clint’s day job involved doing five impossible things before breakfast, so he cupped Bucky’s jaw in his clumsy callused hand and pressed their lips together. 

*

There was a disbelieving second where Bucky didn’t move, afraid to believe that the gentle pressure against his mouth was real. Too long - Clint started to pull away, and it was almost as though Bucky could taste the apologies forming on his lips. He lifted his hand and tangled it into Clint’s hair, not letting him pull up and away. Instead he softened his lips, parted them, coaxing Clint in closer. By the time he let up, by the time he did let Clint pull away, the guy’s eyes were a dreamy dark blue and his lips were bitten red. 

“Swear to god,” Clint said, “if that was a mistletoe kiss I’m gonna have to punch you.” 

Bucky shoved the dumb velvety hat off his head, the cheap material catching between two plates so he couldn’t shake it off his hand. It was hard to care, though, when he was leaning up decisively to kiss Clint again, palm against the back of Clint’s neck and not having to pull him closer at all. 

He couldn’t remember being kissed like this. 

Kisses hadn’t really been quick to come back to him at all, nothing about the future requiring their context, but he had vague memories of softness and waxy lipstick and careful tongues. He didn’t think anyone had been taller than him before, the strain in his neck unfamiliar, and the way Clint’s large hand cupped his cheek was doing all sorts of interesting things to the pit of his stomach. 

So was the way that Clint looked at him, when he pulled away. 

“People get what they want for Christmas?” Clint’s voice was soft, his thumb stroking back and forth across Bucky’s cheek like a wave, like the movement of water, like something strong enough to wear down mountains if you gave it the time. 

“That’s the idea.” He didn’t recognise his voice, like this. 

Clint let out a long breath, and there was something wistful on his face, something that Bucky wanted to work on wiping out. “It’s never really been my experience,” he said. And then, more hesitant, “so you want this, huh?” 

“I’ve _wanted_ this. You have no idea -” 

Clint leaned in and kissed him again, one of those slow ones that could quickly become addicting, the ones that he could feel all the way down to his soul. 

“Yeah,” he said, soft, curling himself around Bucky and snuggling in all warm, “I really think I do.” 


End file.
